Our Trans-Canada trip: Fernie made us want to commit!

Today, I am going to paint you a picture. There is a reason why I want you to humour me for a second. The reason is mainly so that you don’t consider us lunatics as you keep reading this blog post, but it is a reason all the same.

Pierre and I have been fortunate enough to dance through life with the all too popular philosophy of winging it. Whilst winging it, we have been even more fortunate to avoid building up any debt or accumulate any real responsibilities. With the exception of our families and friends, there is no real tether tying us to a place in particular. And what brings this all together in a neat little erratically prone package is that we feed into each other’s most bizarre ideas and then we run with it. One day, we will discuss living out at sea and the next day we will discuss growing our own vegetable garden with just as much fervour.

So naturally, on a beautiful Saturday morning in Fernie when I woke up to a view of the snow capped Lizard Range and told Pierre that I wanted to buy a place here, he was all for it. And then just like that, we changed gears and instead of trip planning, we were realtor shopping.

6 days, 6 showings, 2 realtors, and 1 mortgage preapproval later, we decided that this is not a good time for us to buy in Fernie and just like that, we packed up, got off our butts and got back on the road.

I am a firm believer in love at first sight when we go to new places. And Fernie was just that for both of us. It is a cute little town in southern BC that is almost completely surrounded by mountains. In winter, it is a ski town with record levels of snow and in summer it is a mountain bikers haven. Even though it is a small town, they have events everyday and it is a place that we can both easily see being home one day.

So why didn’t we end up buying? Well, firstly, our budget wasn’t anything to boast about. And when we say we want to buy, we don’t mean we necessarily want to live here full time. So in order to avoid losing money, we would need to be able to rent it out and charge enough to cover our expenses. After a lot of math, we decided that unless we were willing to set up camp here for a few years, there was no way we were going to be able to afford this place. So as we have countless times before, we picked our one true love of travel [insert dramatic music here].

After one night of excellent moping, we trudged over to the visitor centre and played tourist again. On our last day, we hiked up to Castle Mountain to say our goodbyes to Fernie. We sat there and stared at the town and thought that it will never be goodbye for us [insert sad music here]. In hindsight, this was really not the brightest decision because when we got back down, we saw a sign at the trailhead saying that a grizzly bear had bluff charged at a biker 3 times just after we started our hike. We thanked our lucky stars and basically ran the hell out of that place..

Wonder what the next bizarre thing we come up with will be? So do I! Stay tuned..

Must-sees in Fernie:

Island Lake Lodge: You don’t have to stay at the pricey lodge but that doesn’t mean you can’t drive up there to enjoy the view. And if you are looking to spot some wildlife, go there for sunrise!

Events in Fernie: Be sure to check out http://tourismfernie.com/events for the upcoming events in town. One of my favourite things about Fernie is that they have events pretty much everyday.

Castle Mountain hike: This hike is great to see Fernie in all its glory.